Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(58)

“Focus,” Glain said. She knew what he was thinking. “We do our jobs. Consider this reconnaissance for the mission.”

She was right, and he needed to get his bearings again and put Thomas, and any possibilities, out of mind. This could well be the place, but it was definitely not the time.

He took a breath to wrench his mind away from the possibilities and analyze the situation in front of him. They were out in the open, with no retreat behind, and ten automaton Roman lions stalking among them. Jess knew how the lions worked, how they thought, and he also knew that they weren’t particular about innocent victims when something rang their alarms. The automata in Alexandria had been alerted to watch him; had these? So far, none had so much as glanced his direction. The citizens passing through the square below, coming from and going to temples, government buildings, businesses, courts, shops, restaurants, didn’t seem to notice the increase in security, but Jess saw a pattern nevertheless. The area around the Basilica Julia cleared, and those who might have crossed in front instead took a longer route around. No one looked at the lions or at the soldiers or even at the basilica itself.

It was fear he was seeing. No one was quite allowing it to rule them, but all were conscious of the danger.

You’re not guarding the Artifex or a prison, he told himself. You’re guarding your fellow soldiers. The Scholars inside the basilica. You’re guarding original books that need protection. That helped steady him.

Jess remembered his encounters with Burners—sadly, too many in his young life—and began to scan the crowds below. In his experience, the fanatics had a certain purposeful look to them; it wasn’t easy to work yourself up to self-immolation, and every Burner had to accept that his or her mission would probably end in death. They had a common look.

His gaze swept back and forth, back and forth, and then snagged on something he couldn’t quite identify. He wasn’t even sure why he’d noticed that particular group of people clustered together, apparently consulting a map. When he focused, they seemed like typical tourists, attempting to find their way to a landmark.

Then he realized that one by one—and not all together—they were stealing glances at the basilica. After each look, the one who’d taken it would lean in and say something to the others. Then another would take a brief look.

There were five of them, four men and one woman, most older than Jess but not by much. Young, idealistic, and perfectly suited to be recruited to a cause.

Jess’s skin shivered into warning goose bumps, and he heeded it and signaled to Glain, who drifted his way. She covered ground but didn’t seem to move quickly. It was a gift she had that he never could quite master. “What?” she asked him, and stood apparently at ease, though her eyes were never still.

“By the feet of Mercury,” he said. “That group of five. I don’t like it.”

She studied the men and said, “Neither do I. Watch them.”

She moved off, heading for the squad leader. She is good at this, Jess thought; she made it seem like a natural stop, just a standard check-in, and neither of them gave away any alarm.

Glain took out her Codex and wrote something, then snapped it shut. Alerting Santi’s lieutenant, Jess thought, that there might be trouble. He didn’t know if the Artifex Magnus had arrived or if he was keeping Santi waiting; probably the latter. The Artifex had always seemed a man too full of his own importance.

The group of five was joined by more. Seven now. Eight. Each had some kind of carrying pack, and they were careful with them. How much Greek fire could they have? Too much, if those backpacks were full of bottles and containers.

Below him, pacing in front of the stairs, one of the Roman lions paused and turned its head with smooth grace to stare at the group standing next to Mercury, and Jess saw the articulated body crouch lower.

Behind them, the door into the basilica opened. He didn’t turn to look. All his attention was on the lion, which took an elegant, smooth step down, then another. Others of its pride took notice and began to descend toward the Forum.

“Run,” Jess heard Glain whisper. “Run, you idiots.”

But the group of eight standing in the shadow of the statue of Mercury, very near the golden wings on his sandals, just stayed where they were. Watching the lions come closer.

They’d be slaughtered.

“Something’s not right,” Jess said. “Glain—”

“I know,” she said. “They should have run.”

It was a plan.

And he sensed it was working.

Jess took it all in at a glance: the lions clustering together as they advanced to circle the eight in the square; the soldiers still on the steps, watching as the pride of automata stalked their prey.

No one was looking anywhere else.

It was only because he turned that he saw the first attack coming: an arcing bottle that came not from the group in the Forum, but coming from above, from the statue of Jupiter on the opposite side of the Forum, closest to the basilica. “Greek fire!” Jess shouted, and realized the bottle was tumbling end over end. The liquid bubbled inside the glass as it passed over his head, and he ducked instinctively, but it would miss them by a good margin.

The bottle slammed to the steps twenty feet away, landing where a grouping of others from Blue Squad had been standing just a second earlier. But Jess’s call had done its work, and they’d scattered. Only one was hit by cast-off drops; he went down, and another of their new squad mates yanked an emergency kit from her pack and dumped powder on the flames before they could bore through his coat.